Next year will mark the first centenary of what is today one of the most important façades in Santa Cruz, that of the Masonic Temple of Tenerife. It was finished in 1923, and before that, in 1900, the construction of the building began. Its deteriorated sphinxes, its peeling columns, its halls, which are not even the shadow of what they were, or the cave excavated in the earth that is under its floors, witnessed yesterday the official start of the rehabilitation works. After a long administrative road, more than 15 years, everything is finally ready to start a work that has a term of 24 months of execution and that has a budget of three million euros.
Yesterday, together with the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, and the Councilor for Works, Dámaso Arteaga, was the vice-president of the Canary Islands GovernmentRomán Rodríguez, who was expressly invited by the mayor, since, as he recalled, “thanks to an amendment by Nueva Canarias to the State budgets we have obtained those three million that support the comprehensive rehabilitation of the building”.
It is an intimate rehabilitation, in which large machinery will not be seen, nor a large number of workers entering and leaving the temple. The rigor, when it comes to respecting the symbols that make the Masonic Temple unique in Spain and probably in Europe, and the care when it comes to restoring splendor to the Hall of Tenidas, the Hall of Lost Steps or the Hall of Agapes are the guidelines to follow in this rehabilitation.
“We are facing the most important example of Masonic architecture in Spain and almost certainly in Europe,” said Bermúdez, who recalled that there is an agreement with the Grand Lodge of Spain so that the archives of the Lodge of Añaza, promoter of the construction of the temple, are housed in the building after its rehabilitation.
As Arteaga explained, the building will become one more space of the city’s historical heritage, which will have guided tours in which the entire history of such a unique property will be told. It may also be used by the Lodges that request it to hold their meetings. “It will become a benchmark in the city,” he said.
For his part, Román Rodríguez admitted that he is one of the many citizens who has passed San Lucas street many times without stopping to contemplate the Masonic Temple, thus admitting the importance of disseminating the rich historical heritage of the city and setting himself as an example of ignorance about landmarks as important as the Masonic Temple itself. “We want to take advantage of the presence of Nueva Canarias in Congress to benefit all Canarians, that is why I always go to the main administrations so that they can tell me what projects they need to promote. In this case, the mayor pointed this out to me, as he had done before with Valleseco, ”said Rodríguez. Bemúdez joked and asked him to tell “the truth”, because “I sent you ten projects”.
Intervention
There will not be an order in the restoration, as explained by the architect responsible for the work, María Nieves Febles, who pointed out that “we will start by raising the floor of the Meeting Room, which like everything in this building has a meaning, and then we will continue with the different jobs. And it is that the aforementioned room, where the main acts of the lodges were carried out, will be reproduced as it was originally, recreating the polychrome vault that covered the wooden coffered ceiling, which is the only thing that remains now. The stage where the “venerable master” presided over the rites will also be reproduced, the two columns that gave way from the Hall of Lost Steps and the capitals of the columns that adorn the room will be replaced, as well as the characteristic red color of the room.
One of the parts that makes the Masonic Temple unique is the grotto excavated in the rock, under the building, and that in its beginnings was the space in which the aspirants to form part of the Lodge, had to spend three days, a ritual to through which they abandoned their condition as men to enter the world of wisdom hand in hand with Freemasonry. This space, confirmed the mayor, will be open to visitors.
